This was announced on the first day of the “AKB48 Request Hour Setlist Best 200” on the 1st January at Tokyo Dome City Hall.

The concept of how the new Team 8 will be put together and the member selection is different to how things have been done before. In collaboration with their official media partners, auditions will be held in each of the 47 prefectures, and one name will be chosen. The Team 8 members will be chosen from within those 47 candidates.

Under the concept of, “Idols who will go to meet you,” they will do activities across the whole country. It was announced that this will be backed by Toyota Automobiles.

At a journalists' meeting prior to the performance, Takahashi Minami talked about the newly established Team 8, “The sense of anticipation about the new form of AKB48 is very strong. I think the most important thing is for us to hold concerts and show everyone our smiling faces, so I think it would be great if, through this audition, we could spread our smiles to everyone in the country.” Oshima Yuko, captain of Team K, said with a wide smile, “The AKB48 Group Pennant Race will begin soon, so forming Team 8 will increase the spirit of friendly competition between everyone. Moreover, gathering elite members from across the whole country will increase excitement in Japan itself.” Team B captain Umeda Ayaka said, “Up until now we’ve had the slogan, “Idols you can meet,” but with the formation of the new Team 8 under the heading, “Idols who come to meet you,” I’m looking forward to the change this brings to the 48 Group.”

On top of that, the younger members also gave messages aimed at potential recruits who will take on the challenge of the auditions. Talking about her own experiences, Nishino Miki said, “Originally, I’d never learned to dance or sing, so I thought I definitely couldn’t pass the auditions, but I’ve learned so many things through my activities with AKB48. Through my efforts, I was able to be promoted to Team 4, so I want those people who are thinking of participating in the auditions not to give up!” Okada Nana also said, “People who are taking the auditions for the first time will find themselves so nervous their head goes blank, but it’s okay if you can appeal just a little with your own special skills and charm.”

Takahashi finished by saying, “AKB48 really needs the power of young people. Without worrying about how it’s impossible, I want you to step forward and take this chance. I’m looking forward to meeting everyone! Let’s deliver our smiles to everyone through our activities.”

From tomorrow, the 24th January, applications for auditions will start being accepted across the whole country. Team 8 will be formed in the last 10 days of March, and the plan is to hold an unveiling event in May. The team will have its debut show at the AKB48 Theatre in August, and will embark on a countrywide tour in November.

The Gifu representative in AKB48 Team 8 announces her graduation from the groupJune 19, 2014

On June 18, idol group AKB48 Team 8 member Okubora Chinatsu, who is Gifu prefecture's representative, announced her graduation from the group.

She explained the reason for her graduation on the team's official site, "It's been about 2 months since our activities began, and it was getting difficult for me to continue the activities while coping with my schoolwork, so I started feeling that I would not be able to stay as the way I am in front of you fans if I continued this."

As Team 8 has a concept that is "idols that go to see you" with 47 members chosen from each prefecture, there will be an audition to elect a new representative of Gifu, which will be only for the residents in Gifu prefecture.

AKB48 Team 8's first original song to be included in the group's upcoming singleJuly 22, 2014

On July 21, it was announced that AKB48's Team 8, which is comprised of members hailing from all 47 prefectures of Japan, will record their first original track entitled "47 no Suteki na Machi e." The track is for their upcoming 37th single "Kokoro no Placard," which is set to be released on August 27.

Each of the members will sing their home-prefecture name in the interlude of the track. Hyogo-born member Yamada Nanami (15) stated, "I would like to travel to many places so that many people can hear the song."

For the record, as of this post, no official announcement has been made yet, therefore, unless the Hallohallo Inc guys just goofed up and mentioned it really early when maybe they weren't supposed to, the following post is making an assumption that there's going to be an MNL48 (even including a Photoshopped "MNL48" logo on one of the photos taken from the event).